The use of viewing devices equipped with location detectors, a camera and a display to provide an augmented reality view of surroundings is gaining in acceptance. Such a viewing device employs various location detection techniques (e.g., global positioning system satellite signals, a magnetic compass, etc.) to determine its current location and the current orientation of its camera relative to the surface of the Earth, and to request information concerning items in its immediate surroundings. Such a device then visually presents a view of the surroundings as captured by its camera in which that view is overlain with indicators that identify items in the view, thereby creating an augmented reality view.
In essence, such a viewing device becomes a “virtual window pane” through which an operator views his or her surroundings in a manner that enables items to be located and identified more quickly using the indicators of those items that are added to the view of those surroundings. By way of example, such a viewing device may be employed to find such items as restaurants, restrooms, hotel accommodations, tourist attractions, etc.
Unfortunately, current viewing devices providing such augmented reality views do not take into account what items are likely of interest to an operator at any given time. As a result, such viewing devices tend to provide an augmented reality view filled with too many indicators of items in the immediate surroundings. To an operator, this reduces the utility of the augmented reality view by essentially “cluttering” the view with so many indicators of items that are not of interest that the operator is hard pressed to pick out the indicators of items that are of interest and is hard pressed to actually see much of the surroundings in the augmented reality view.